Watertown, MA – The Regional Executive of Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society of the Eastern United States is pleased to solicit submissions for the fourth annual Minas and Kohar Tölölyan Prize in Contemporary Literature. As in previous years, two prizes will be awarded to the winners of the Prize: one for a submission in Armenian and one for a submission in the English language.

Named after one of the major Armenian literary critics of the second half of the Twentieth century and his wife, a devoted and acclaimed teacher of literature, the annually awarded prize will recognize the work produced by talented writers working in North America. The prize is intended to encourage new work in all the major genres of literary production, as they are currently understood in North America. In this expanded understanding, poetry, short stories, novels and drama are all included, but so are works of creative non-fiction, a genre that includes memoirs, as well as personal, descriptive, literary and critical essays. Writers in all these genres may be considered as candidates for the prize, as long as the authors are of Armenian ancestry, or the work has an Armenian theme or revolves around an Armenian topic.

The primary purpose of the Prizes is to encourage and offer recognition through the award and through the ensuing publicity for those who wish to write about Armenian subjects and topics. There will also be a modest financial award of $1,500 for each of the two winners.

Members of the jury are: Dr. Sima Aprahamian (Montreal), Dr. Vartan Matiossian (New York/New Jersey), Mr. Gourgen Arzoumanian (California), Mr. Yervant Kotchounian (California), and Ms. Anoush Agnerian (Montreal). Dr. Khachig Tölölyan is rotating off the jury this year and is being replaced by Ms. Agnerian. Hamazkayin Regional Executive Committee of Eastern USA is grateful to Dr. Tölölyan for his leadership and stewardship of the prize over the past several years. Mr. Kotchunian will assume the operational responsibilities of the committee, to which he has been a key contributor for the past three years.

The Prizes will be announced in October of 2017 as a part of the events dedicated to the Armenian Cultural month. All submissions must be sent electronically to tololyan_award@hamazkayin-usa.org as a PDF file (highly encouraged) or in hard copy format to

Hamazkayin Tololyan Prize Committee

80 Bigelow Ave

Watertown, MA 02472

by April 30, 2017. All submissions must be accompanied by the Tololyan Prize Application form, found online at http://bit.ly/167vSsM. The Armenian and English versions of the Rules and Regulations of the Award can also be found at the above link.

Submissions may consist of works published in 2015 or 2016, as well as recent, yet unpublished works.

This award has been made possible by the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Edward & Vergine Misserlian of San Francisco, CA.

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The Eastern USA Regional Executive Committee of Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society, a 501 c (3) not for profit organization, constitutes one of the branches of the worldwide Hamazkayin family, founded in 1928. The Eastern United States region, headquartered in Massachusetts, consists of eight chapters in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia, Providence and Washington, DC.

We aim to empower our chapters and membership to nurture and promote Armenian arts and culture. Given our millennia-long history, we are cognizant of the dynamic nature of the concept of identity. To that end, we strive to maintain our identity and heritage while encouraging cultural innovation, and are committed to furthering the contribution of Armenian culture to the complex tapestry of world civilizations.

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